[THS] Juan Cole : Makarov predicts US collapse if Iran attacked

[Peter Webster]

http://www.planetarymovement.org/go/newsflash/makarov-predicts-us-collapse-if-iran-attacked-by-juan-cole/

Makarov predicts US collapse if Iran attacked 
by Juan Cole 

February 21, 2010

It appears that, the International Atomic Energy Agency is at least allowing for the
possibility that documents allegedly found on a laptop some years ago --but
discounted by the  CIA  and the DIA as of dubious provenance and incompatible with
other intelligence gathered in Iran -- point to a nuclear weapons program that no
one has been able to locate.

Some close observers have concluded that the laptop documents are forgeries. A
new IAEA report that declines to dismiss the alleged documents will certainly cause
the war lobby in the United States to redouble its efforts to get up an attack on Iran.

Forged documents on the supposed purchase of yellowcake uranium by Iraq from
Niger were used by George W. Bush to promote a war on Iraq. It was at that time
the Intelligence and Research division of the Department of State that attempted to
throw cold water on these "documents," but was ignored by the president. Then
head of the IAEA, Mohammed Elbaradei, was able to show them false in one
afternoon.

The UN inspectors have a right to be frustrated with Iran, which has allowed
inspections of its Natanz nuclear enrichment site, but which has not been completely
transparent or adhered to the letter of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty. But the sum of those frustrations does not point to a nuclear
weapons program, unlike the disputed laptop documents. In statements to the press
this fall, US intelligence officials have said that they stand behind the conclusions first
reached in 2007, that Iran has no nuclear weapons program.

The Obama administration wants stricter sanctions on Iran, and the Sarah Palin/
Daniel Pipes lunatic fringe wants a military attack on Iran.

But Russia's General of the Army Nikolay Makarov, Chief of the
General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, warned that an
American attack on Iran now, when the US is bogged down in two wars, might well
lead to the collapse of the United States. He said that such an attack would roil the
region and have negative consequences for Russia (a neighbor of Iran via the
Caspian Sea). And, he said, the Russian military is taking steps to forestall such an
American strike on Iran. Makarov made the remarks in Vzglyad on Friday, February
19, 2010, and they were translated or paraphrased by the USG Open Source Center:

    Makarov also commented on the recent rumors about the possibility of an attack
upon Iran by the United States. In his opinion, this would be complete madness on
the part of the American military. He said: "Admiral Michael McMullen, Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said that, in the United States, there is a plan for
carrying out strikes against Iran but the United States clearly understands that now,
when it is conducting two military campaigns, one in Iraq and the other in
Afghanistan, a third campaign against Iran would simply lead to a collapse. It would
not be able to withstand the strain."


    Nevertheless, in proportion to the winding down of the campaigns in Iraq and
Afghanistan, (the plan for) a war with the Islamic Republic of Iran, in the opinion of
General Makarov, may again come out to the foreground.

    General Makarov, Chief of the General Staff, said: "The consequences of such an
attack will be terrible not only for the region but also for us. Iran is our neighbor and
we are very carefully following this situation. The leadership of our country is
undertaking all measures in order not to allow such a (military) development of
events."


The less potentially catastrophic path, tougher United Nations Security Council
sanctions, however, depend on Russia and China going along. Despite Washington's
optimism that Russia is softening toward the idea of stricter sanctions, Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov cast the severest doubts on that idea on Friday.

In a radio interview on Friday with Ekho Moskvy Radio, which was translated by the
USG Open Source Center, Lavrov was asked, "What is the situation with Iran's foreign
policy today? And is it true that we now have as a whole a united position with the
United States on Iran?"

The foreign minister replied, "I don't think that we have a united position." He said
that both Washington and Moscow agree on the importance of not allowing "a
violation of the regime of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons." He said the two
countries have the same position on this issue, "although we do not coincide 100 per
cent in methods of implementing it."

So what Lavrov is saying is that the US and Russia do not actually have a common
position or agree on really tough sanctions. They just both have a vague similar
position that proliferation is bad.

Lavrov said that Moscow's independent stance toward Iran is rooted in the two
countries' historical relationship as well as in Russian desire to get Iranian cooperation
on such issues as the disposition of resources in the Caspian Sea. (For a quick
overview of Russian-Iranian relations, see N.M. Mamedova, who also mentions Iran's
tacit support for Russia against Georgia in the Caucasus.) Lavrov said:

    But Iran for us, unlike the US, is a close neighbour, a country with which we have
had a very long, historically conditioned relationship, a country with which we
cooperate in the economic, humanitarian and military-technology fields alike and, let
me note this particularly, a country that is our partner in the Caspian along with three
other Caspian littoral states.

    Therefore, we are not at all indifferent to what happens in Iran and around it.
This applies to our economic interests and our security interests alike. This also
applies . . . to the task of early settlement of the legal status of the Caspian Sea,
which is not an easy task and in the approaches to which the Iranian position is close
enough to ours.

    Therefore, speaking of the proliferation threats, yes, we are concerned about
Iran's reaction.


Lavrov is less convinced there is anything sinister about Iran's civilian nuclear
research, though he admits that questions remain:

    in the process of work, questions arose both from the IAEA's inspectors themselves
and on the basis of the intelligence which the IAEA obtains from various countries.
They were questions that aroused suspicion as to whether there might in reality be
some military aspects to Iran's nuclear programme.

    These questions were presented to the Iranians, as required by the procedures
applicable in such cases. And, some time ago, Iran answered most of them. In
principle, its answers were satisfactory, in a way that was considered by the
professionals in Vienna normal. However, some of the questions are still on the table.


So Lavrov thinks Iran's answers are largely 'satisfactory,' though there remain small
areas of uncertainty.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in Moscow earlier this week calling for
'crippling sanctions on Iran.' Lavrov's remarks clearly indicated that Moscow
disagreed that that situation was so perilous as to call for such a step.

But just to be sure there was no misunderstanding, Lavrov sent out his own deputy
foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, to denounce any such talk.

Ryabkov said, according to Xinhua, "The term 'crippling sanctions' on Iran is totally
unacceptable to us. The sanctions should aim at strengthening the regime of non-
proliferation . . . We certainly cannot talk about sanctions that could be interpreted as
punishment on the whole country and its people for some actions or inaction . . . "
He said that Russia sought to settle differences with Iran through dialogue and
engagement. He also pledged that Russia would honor its deal to provide Iran S-300
air defense systems. He said, "There is a contract to supply these systems to Iran and
we will fulfil it. The delays are linked to technical problems with adjusting these
systems . . . "

So on Friday, even as the hawks in Washington watered at the mouth at the prospect
of being able to use the new IAEA report as a basis for belligerency against Iran,
Russia's foreign policy establishment was engaged in a whirlwind of activity aimed at
challenging the notion that Moscow is in Washington's back pocket on Iran sanctions.
The chief of staff predicted American collapse in an Iran conflagration, and vowed in
any case to try to block any such attack. The foreign minister pronounced himself
largely but not completely satisfied with Iran's answers concerning its nuclear
activities, and underlined that Russia needs Iran because of Caspian issues (and he
could have added, because of Caucasus and Central Asian ones). And then the
deputy foreign minister was enlisted to slap Netanyahu around a little, presumably on
the theory that it would sting less coming from someone with 'deputy' in his title.

Those who have argued that Russia's increasing willingness to acquiesce in tougher
UNSC sanctions might influence China to go along, too, should rethink. Russia doesn't
seem all that aboard with a brutal sanctions regime. China not only has its own
reasons not to want its own deals with Iran to be declared illegal, but its leaders
doubt Iran has the capacity to construct a nuclear warhead anytime soon.

Postscript: The head of Iran's nuclear program, interviewed on Aljazeera, warns the
US against pressuring Iran.

John Ricardo I. "Juan" Cole (born October 1952) is an American scholar,
public intellectual, and historian of the modern Middle East and South Asia.  He is
Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan.